AMAZON was effectively the AR8, and is referred to as such in one product brochure[5].

Source code

The "GPL source code" as provided by the various vendors of TI AR7 (with linux) devices is incomplete, since TI apparently refuses to publish the source code to some of their core kernel modifications, such as LZMA (de)compression of the zImage. The gpl-violations.org project is actively trying to resolve this issue.

If you go through the GPL releases for AR7 devices by different vendors, you can find all the sources for the AR7 board. Here's a list:

IRC

There is a specifically targeted #ar7 irc channel on Freenode where those devoted to hacking ar7 based architecture go to hang out.

Memory map

AR7 family deploys unusual memory map. The AR7 chip has a small memory banks on the chip : 4Kb PROM (@0xBFC00000) and 4Kb RAM (@0x80000000) and memory block for the DSP (@unknown). The rest of the external memory banks are selectable with CS0..4. The FLASH is located at 0x90000000 (CS0) and RAM is located at 0x94000000 (CS1). Linux should define a non-contiguous memory and install an IRQ trampolines at the MIPS interrupt vectors.

C62x DSP

TI TMS320C62x is a fixed-point Digital Signal Processor core. C62x is based on the VelociTI VLIW architecture developed by TI. C62x is a member of the TI C6000 family.

VLYNQ

TI's VLYNQ is a low power, low pin-count serial communication interface that enables the extension of an internal bus segment to one or more external physical devices. The external devices are mapped into local, physical address space and appears as if they are on the internal bus. The external device must have a VLYNQ interface. The VLYNQ module serializes bus transactions in one device, transfers the serialized data via a VLYNQ port, and de-serializes the transaction in the external device. The VLYNQ interface is described in the following TI documents:

Emulation

QEMU with additional patches supports emulation of AR7 and some of its
most important devices (serial ports, ethernet). It also includes a flash emulation
and can run firmware of typical AR7 based DSL routers.